By Evan Minsker
on January 31, 2013 at 11:00 a.m. EST

Fresh off the announcement that the first three Thermals albums are getting reissued, the band have shared details of their new one. Desperate Ground is due April 16 on their new label home, Saddle Creek. (They previously released albums on Sub Pop and Kill Rock Stars.)

By Tom Breihan
on July 1, 2011 at 4:15 p.m. EDT

-- Indie label Saddle Creek has opened up a brick-and-mortar record store, called Saddle Creek Shop, in the back of its Omaha warehouse. It sells CD and vinyl copies of every in-print Saddle Creek release, as well as curated records from non-Saddle Creek types. The grand opening goes down July 9.

-- Electro-pop duo the Black Ghosts, which features former Simian vocalist Simon Lord and Theo Keating of Fake Blood, will release their new album When Animals Stare July 11 on Southern Fried. Listen to a sampler from the album here.

-- The Quebec City Summer Festival takes over the gorgeous French Canadian city July 7-17. It music lineup features names like the Black Keys, Girl Talk, Wavves, Death From Above 1979, MSTRKRFT, Cut Copy, M. Ward, Marianne Faithfull, Wanda Jackson, and Metallica.

-- The Lounge on the Farm festival comes to Merton Farm in Canterbury, England July 8-10. The Streets, Jamie Woon, Katy B, the Joy Formidable, Echo and the Bunnymen, Fujiya and Miyagi, the Vaccines, Cornershop, Ellie Goulding, Graham Coxon, Slow Club, Pete and the Pirates, Still Corners, and Summer Camp all appear on its bill.

By Tom Breihan
on December 8, 2010 at 9:00 a.m. EST

Photo by Vanessa Heins

With their 2009 debut album Hometowns, Canadian trio the Rural Alberta Advantage showed a serious knack for zero-subtlety, yelling-at-the-heavens indie rock. And on March 1, they'll follow that album up with the new album Departing, coming from Saddle Creek. In Canada, Paper Bag will release it. We've got the tracklist below.

-- With the addition of Bob Mould (performing H端skerD端 songs with No Age), Menomena, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Hopewell, Birds of Avalon, the lineup for ATP New York 2009 has been finalized. The fest goes down September 11-13 in Monticello, New York.

-- The New York City institution Knitting Factory will re-open in its new Brooklyn home, 361 Metropolitan Ave. in Williamsburg, on September 9. Les SavyFav will play the opening night, with shows by Titus Andronicus, Boss Hog, the Raincoats, Mayer Hawthorne and more scheduled for the coming months.

By Amy Phillips
on April 30, 2009 at 2:50 p.m. EDT

In his writeup of the Rural Alberta Advantage's set at the eMusic SXSW showcase, Tom Breihan wrote, "This band could be huge." Well, they're on their way. The trio have signed to Omaha, Nebraska powerhouse indie Saddle Creek. Saddle Creek will re-release their debut album, Hometowns, on July 7 (it was originally self-released by the band last year).

In case you're wondering, yes, the Rural Alberta Advantage are indeed actually from rural Alberta, Canada. And they sing songs about the advantage of being from there as well. So, truth in advertising. And they'll tour a bit of Canada this summer. Tour dates, as well as the Hometowns tracklist, are listed below.

Saddle Creek also announced today that they have signed Lincoln, Nebraska experimentalists UUVVWWZ, and will release their self-titled debut album on July 7 as well.